Colorado Memory Systems
 | |
| Company type |
|
|---|---|
| Industry | Technology |
| Founded | 1985 in Loveland, Colorado, United States |
| Founder | William "Bill" Beierwaltes |
| Defunct | Template:End date and age |
| Fate | Acquired by Hewlett-Packard |
| Products | Quarter-inch cartridge (QIC) drives and tapes |
Number of employees | 600 (1992, peak) |
| Parent |
|
Colorado Memory Systems, Inc. (CMS) was a U.S.-based technology firm operating from 1985 until 1992 in Loveland, Colorado. The company specialized in developing tape drive solutions utilizing quarter-inch cartridge (QIC) technology designed for use with personal computers and workstations. Bill Beierwaltes founded CMS as a division stemming from his earlier enterprise, Colorado Time Systems, before it was eventually purchased by Hewlett-Packard in 1992.
Origins and initial offerings (1985–1988)
CMS was established in 1985 in Loveland, Colorado by William "Bill" Beierwaltes as an extension of Colorado Time Systems, a company he had founded in 1972. While Colorado Time Systems concentrated on computerized timing display solutions, CMS focused on the expanding market for data storage devices tailored to personal computers.[1] Prior to founding these businesses, Beierwaltes spent ten years at Hewlett-Packard managing product lines related to electronic measurement instruments.[2]
The company introduced its first products in March 1985: a series of 60-MB QIC tape drives produced by Rexon's WangTek division and rebranded for Tecmar's distribution via IBM. These tape backup units represented IBM’s inaugural resold tape drive offerings for their Personal Computer platform. The product range featured both external and internal models that integrated QIC tape mechanisms alongside hard disk drives.[3][3]
In August 1985, CMS partnered with Tecmar to launch the initial peripheral devices for Commodore’s Amiga 500 computer. This lineup included a modem, a multifunction expansion unit providing serial/parallel I/O ports, a real-time clock, RAM expansion, and a 20-MB external disk drive—signifying CMS’s early diversification into various PC-related hardware.Cite error: The opening <ref> tag is malformed or has a bad name
Jumbo series development (1988–1992)
The introduction of the Jumbo product line in early 1988 marked CMS’s first independently branded offerings. In 1989, the QIC-150 model incorporated Stac Electronics' Stacker compression technology at the hardware level, effectively doubling storage capacity compared to other QIC drives available at the time without compromising speed. This advancement challenged competitors such as Archive Corporation and Irwin Magnetics and led to advocacy from the QIC Committee—a group comprising 35 companies—for establishing compression standards to guarantee cross-brand compatibility and avoid data loss from incompatible backups.
The Jumbo series became the cornerstone of CMS’s revenue stream and was instrumental in driving its growth through the early 1990s. By May 1990, Colorado Memory Systems had formally separated from its parent company Colorado Time Systems but continued operating out of Loveland within an 88,000-square-foot facility staffed by between 250 and 500 employees across management, manufacturing, and software development departments. By late 1992, this workforce had grown to approximately 600 personnel, reflecting substantial expansion during this timeframe.
Hewlett-Packard period (1992–1994)
Colorado Memory Systems (CMS) intended to launch an initial public offering in June 1992 but was instead purchased by Hewlett-Packard (HP) in September 1992 for an undisclosed amount. Before this acquisition, CMS had reported a profit of $2.6 million on revenues of $131.5 million during its most recent fiscal quarter. From November 1992 through November 1994, CMS functioned as an independently operated subsidiary under HP, after which it was fully absorbed as a division within HP. The CMS brand and its Loveland, Colorado headquarters remained under HP ownership for several years until the facility was transferred to Agilent Technologies, a company spun off from HP, which subsequently sold the site to the Thompson School District.
After the acquisition, two former CMS executives established ComByte, Inc. in 1993. Founder Beierwaltes came out of retirement in 1997 to create OneStep Software and later took on the role of CEO at OnStream, a tape drive and data storage company that originated as a Philips spin-off.